The Billings Gazette (MT) reports:

Montana and federal officials Tuesday released the final plan for cleaning up solvent-contaminated soils and groundwater in the Lockwood Superfund site.

The cleanup will take about 10 years and cost an estimated $14.3 million.

The report, called a Record of Decision, identifies the remedy for the site as approved by the state Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

[...]

The chemicals, which are commonly used as degreasers and in dry cleaning, include tetrachloroethene (PCE), and its breakdown chemicals, trichloroethene (TCE), dichloroethene (DCE) and vinyl chloride.

Read the full story.

Trichloroethylene (TCE) and other VOC pollution has been detected at BNSF rail yards in Helena, Havre, Missoula, Kalispell, Whitefish, Livingston, Laurel, Great Falls and Billings:

In fact, 22 BNSF sites are listed on the state's priority cleanup list, with two — Livingston and Havre — ranked as a maximum priority and another 11 — including the rail yard and a tailings pile near Ryan Fields ballpark in Helena — considered high priorities. BNSF is the only company with more than two sites out of 208 businesses on the list.

BNSF representatives are up front about the on-site problems, and the company has spent millions of dollars installing monitoring and recovery wells, wastewater treatment plants and ditches in an effort to pump out contaminants and keep them from moving off-site.

But those who have tried to force the railroad to deal with migrating contaminants say the company is reluctant to acknowledge, test for or define any problems.

"I know they may have liability concerns, or they may be in litigation and don't want to do some things," said Denise Martin, section supervisor for the state hazardous waste site cleanup bureau. "I don't know their motivation, but there are other companies that are much more responsive."

[...]

"We have become aware that in some instances it doesn't take very much contamination in the groundwater, if the conditions are right, for there to be the potential for indoor air to become contaminated too," Martin said. "The toxicity is greater in the air than if you took a glass with it in and drank it, because you're getting the contaminants into the lungs where there's more thorough absorption.

"We want to make sure people are not drinking these chlorinated solvents, but there's an even greater risk if they're showering and inhaling the steam and contaminants that may be released."

Read more.

...to keep people safer from TCE, please encourage them to contact:



Jody Milanese (millaneese) in Congresswoman Sue Kelly's office at 202-225-5441

More from the GAO Report, as promised. Please bear in mind:

· 85% of the sites below were discovered 15 yrs ago or more
· over 60% of the potentially eligible sites and over 35% of all sites below report no clean-up activities

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Table IV.1: Sites Classified as Awaiting an NPL Decision in Each State, by Eligibility for Listing and Status of Cleanup Progress
+
Table VI.1: State Officials’ Assessments of States’ Financial Capabilities to Clean Up Potentially Eligible Sites

State	Number of sites classified as awaiting an NPL decision	Number of sites unlikely to become eligible for the NPL	Number of potentially eligible sites with some cleanup activities	Number of potentially eligible sites with no reported cleanup activities	Number of sites for which no surveys were received	State officials’ assessment of state’s financial capability to clean up potentially eligible sites
Alabama	25	10	7	8	0	Very poor
Alaska	28	14	8	6	0	Excellent
Arizona	34	16	10	8	0	Excellent
Arkansas	4	3	0	1	0	Good
California	a 189	64	51	74	0	Fair
Colorado	30	12	10	6	2	Very poor
Connecticut	290	74	98	118	0	Poor
Delaware	1	1	0	0	0	Excellent
District of Columbia	a 1	0	0	1	0
Florida	269	74	85	110	0	Fair
Georgia	74	39	8	27	0	Poor
Guam	2	2	0	0	0
Hawaii	17	12	4	1	0	Fair
Idaho	16	5	5	6	0	*
Illinois	207	95	43	69	0	Fair
Indiana	54	21	15	18	0	Very poor
Iowa	33	29	4	0	0	Very poor
Kansas	37	28	4	5	0	Very poor
Kentucky	20	15	2	3	0	Good
Louisiana	10	6	4	0	0	Poor
Maine	56	28	17	11	0	Poor
Maryland	20	8	4	8	0	Other b
Massachusetts	a 201	11	19	171	0	Fair
Michigan	50	22	18	10	0	Excellent
Midway Island	1	1	0	0	0
Minnesota	17	6	6	5	0	Good
Mississippi	9	4	1	2	2	Very poor
Missouri	91	73	7	11	0	*
Montana	11	2	7	2	0	Very poor
Navajo Nation	14	0	0	14	0
Nebraska	a 36	16	4	15	1	Very poor
Nevada	12	8	3	1	0	Poor
New Hampshire	42	24	9	9	0	Poor
New Jersey	172	60	49	63	0	Good
New Mexico	15	7	6	2	0	Very poor
New York	a 192	135	15	41	1	*
North Carolina	57	18	21	18	0	Poor
North Dakota	4	2	1	1	0	Poor
Northern Mariana Islands	1	0	1	0	0
Ohio	79	25	23	31	0	Very poor
Oklahoma	7	4	1	2	0	Very poor
Oregon	29	7	6	16	0	Fair
Pennsylvania	73	35	18	20	0	Excellent
Puerto Rico	16	3	4	9	0
Rhode Island	121	14	23	84	0	Poor
South Carolina	45	32	8	5	0	Good
South Dakota	8	6	2	0	0	Other b
Tennessee	102	51	19	32	0	Poor
Texas	21	18	1	2	0	Poor
Utah	48	17	8	16	7	*
Vermont	30	16	5	9	0	Poor
Virginia	22	8	2	12	0	*
Washington	28	11	8	9	0	Fair
West Virginia	11	7	4	0	0	Other b
Wisconsin	53	34	8	11	0	Excellent
Wyoming	1	1	0	0	0
Total	3,036	1,234	686	1,103	13

a California, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Nebraska did not respond to surveys. For these states, the data in table IV.1 are based on EPA’s survey responses alone and, for that reason, may be less reliable than for states having responses from both EPA and states. New York provided responses to only a few questions in our survey.

b “Other” indicates that the respondent was uncertain about the state’s financial capability.

* State officials in Idaho, New York, Missouri, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming declined to participate in [the] telephone survey.

EPA Region 8 serves Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. In January of 2005, they published these guidelines (1.5MB PDF):

The purpose of this document is to provide a synopsis of trichloroethylene (TCE) inhalation toxicity values and provide the corresponding risk-based indoor air concentrations for use in vapor intrusion assessment. Table 1 summarizes the toxicity values and risk-based concentrations. Figure 1 provides a graphic comparison of the ranges of concentrations corresponding to each of the toxicity values.

The Billings Gazette reports:

The insurance policy for a medical research company's laboratory in Hamilton does not cover pollution caused by years of dumping hazardous waste into [the Bitterroot Valley Sanitary Landfill] nearby, the Montana Supreme Court said Tuesday.

The unanimous decision rejected claims by Corixa Corp., formerly Ribi Immunochem Research Inc., that it deserved coverage because the resulting contamination of groundwater was unexpected and unintentional. The court said the waste dumping was intentional, and therefore, Corixa's insurance policy did not apply.

TCE, PCE, and vinyl chloride are among the contaminants of concern at the site. You can read the full story here.

For more detail on the contamination, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has a full summary of findings and remediation strategy at the landfill in their Record of Decision (ROD).